Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1884 — The Great Canal. [ARTICLE]

The Great Canal.

It is now proposed to join the Bay of Biscay with the Miditerranean Sea by means of a great ship canal, which will save the voyage around the Spanish peninsula. This would be a work second in importance only to the Suez Canal itself, for all the vessels from England and Northern Europe would be forced to use this new means of communication. It would be a gigantic work, but it would certainly pay in time. In the meanwhile the Panama Canal is being vigorously prosecuted by M.de Lesseps. This is a mighty work, for it aims to join the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by a great ship canal cut through Central America. A vast amount of work has been done, and the most gigantic efforts are being made to finish this extraordinary channel by the close of of 1880. But it seems that only 1-00 of the dredging, 11-50 of rock cutting, and 1-15 (2,067,000 metres) of the earth of excavation had been completed on the first of March last. The important supplementary work, the Chagres Dam, is not yet begun. There is reason to fear that the canal will not be finished before 1900. Of the 600,000,000 francs subscribed for, 300,000,000 have been spent in preliminaries and plant, and 100,000,000 in purchasing and improving the railways. It is supposed that 500,000,000 more of francs will be required to complete the work.— Demorest’s Monthly.